The present invention relates to a workflow system for managing an overall work through the use of a plurality of workflow definitions.
A representative example of a conventional workflow system arranged to utilize a plurality of workflow definitions is described in JP-A-8-123744. This workflow system implements the association or the serial association of workflows by combining a plurality of workflow definitions in a hierarchical or serial manner. This workflow system is arranged to provide an inlet and an outlet for the workflow definition and linking the inlet of one workflow definition with the outlet of another workflow definition. This system therefore enables to manage the workflow definition across two or more sections independently in each section.
Further, another example of the workflow system provided with means for grasping the progressing state of the flow being executed in the outside workflow system such as another organization is described in JP-A-8-221476. This workflow system is capable of easily grasping the progressing state of the workflow being executed in another organization to which workflow the execution information is sent from the self-organization. This workflow system is arranged so that a workflow server having received the workflow case notifies a workflow inter-server managing unit for recording and managing the workflow being executed of the receipt of the information and the workflow inter-server managing unit can keep trace of the workflow case having being set to another workflow server, grasp the progressing state of the execution, and report it to the workflow server having received the workflow case in response to the request for grasping the progressing state.
Moreover, another example of the workflow system arranged to be associated with another workflow managing system so that the details of the progressing state cannot be grasped by another workflow managing system is described in JP-A-9-204467. This workflow system is arranged to describe an activity of a flow of series applications associated with plural persons in a workflow, present a collection of plural activities as one outside activity according to the other party so that the details of the progressing state and the workflow arrangement may not be leaked outside.
However, the foregoing background arts have the problems to be discussed below.
At first, the workflow managing system described in JP-A-8-123744 is arranged to transfer a workflow case from one organization to another one or vice versa. In the case of greatly changing the workflow definition such as remodeling of one organization, another organization is required to change the workflow definition to be associated with the remodeled organization, resulting in increasing the number of the maintaining steps of the workflow.
Second, the workflow managing system has difficulty in disclosing the necessary information to an outside domain as keeping the exact progressing information. In the case of grasping the progress of a case in the combination of the workflow managing system described in JP-A-8-123744 and the workflow system described in JP-A8-221476, the sections to be associated may be transparent to the outside. Hence, if the domain of the other party is located outside of the company, the information inside of the company may be leaked outside. This is unfavorable to the security. In this respect, the workflow managing system described in JP-A-9-204467 is arranged to restrict the disclosure of the information by presenting a collection of activities as one activity. However, the presentation of the collection of activities results in concealing the information of the progress, which makes it possible to exactly grasp the progressing state from the outside.
Third, in the case of receiving the same case from other domains, the workflow definition of one domain may be different from that of another domain according to the type of the service. For example, the workflow managing system described in JP-A-8-123744 is required so that each sender domain may specify the corresponding workflow definition to each service. Hence, this system needs to do a troublesome work in notifying the sender domains of the workflow definition for each service.
Fourth, in the case of managing the work for executing a plurality of workflows, the foregoing systems have difficulty in describing a workflow to be managed merely by a routine work to be described by the workflow definition. That is, the background arts allow an operator to manage each workflow in the case of inputting and managing plural individual workflow cases in the service to be done by the workflow system. Further, if the cases are related to each other, the background arts provide a capability of managing the progress of series services by associatively connecting the workflow definitions corresponding to the cases as described in JP-A-8-123744. However, if the relevance between the workflow cases is variable, the background arts are incapable of constantly connecting the workflow definitions with each other, thereby being unable to continuously managing the progress of the series services, which imposes a restriction on the service to be described by the workflow definition.